


Evenings of Eternity

by agerefandom (tazia101)



Series: Good Omens Regression [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Agender Aziraphale (Good Omens), Agender Character, Asexual Crowley, Fluff, Gen, Neutral Kink Mention, Non-Kink Regression, Non-Sexual Age Play, Regressor Crowley (Good Omens), We Need Better Age Regression Tags, agere, good communication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:20:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25456885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tazia101/pseuds/agerefandom
Summary: Crowley has been many things throughout the millennia, but he’s never been a child. He finds himself curious about the idea of childhood, and Aziraphale offers to help him explore that curiosity. Featuring unusually good communication, regressor Crowley, and caregiver Aziraphale!(Mostly book universe, but set in the modern day with TV show influences)
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Good Omens Regression [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2094612
Comments: 8
Kudos: 70





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my tumblr account, @agerefandom. I'm always taking requests from sfw blogs for age regression fics! 
> 
> I use non-sexual kink tags because AO3 doesn't have a great system for tagging age regression yet, and I hope I can popularize the 'agere' tag for the future. Anyways, I hope you enjoy!
> 
> As far as we can humanly define alien gender and sexuality, I headcanon Crowley as asexual and genderfluid, while Aziraphale is gay and agender: these things have little bearing on the story but I thought I'd mention them!

After several thousand years, Aziraphale thought he’d gotten used to Time, with all of its intricacies. But after the non-apocalypse, he found that it was moving differently.

Well, that wasn’t quite right: it all changed when he moved in with Crowley.

Moving in together seemed like the natural thing to do, after everything, and after a few months with no word from Upstairs nor Downstairs, they both warily agreed to try a kind of retirement. Settle down together as housemates who could enjoy the sunshine without worrying about being treasonous or hedonistic, who could call each other friends without looking over their shoulders for eavesdroppers.

So Aziraphale tucked away his bookshop into a little dimension where no one would find it, and the books wouldn’t gather dust. He packed all of his favourites, which was roughly half the shop, into a suitcase, and carried it out to where Crowley was leaning against the Bentley. Crowley helped him load it into the boot with a decent amount of grumbling, and that had been it for London.

Here on the South Downs, Crowley’s plants spread across their house. They were more verdant than ever, as Aziraphale’s disappointed looks had proven a more terrifying threat than anything Crowley had thrown at them. The plants mingled with the books, bloomed in the well-used kitchen, and lounged in the window frames, soaking up the occasional day of sunlight.

From the very start, Aziraphale found that living with Crowley was like discovering Earth all over again. He had started counting his new life not from the apocalypse-that-wasn’t, but from the date when they moved in together.

Reading felt different with Crowley curled in the chair beside him, flicking through news apps. Bathing felt different with Crowley humming along to a record in the living room. Nights felt different with Crowley sleeping through most of them, leaving the silence heavy around Aziraphale, and much lonelier than the nights had been in his bookshop, with the nightlife of Soho all around him.

The whole world was new twice-over, once from Adam’s decision to save the earth, and again from the mere proximity of Crowley.

Time was re-invented, not moving in the familiar decades that bled into centuries, but suddenly made into mornings, evenings, and late nights. The days came alive in a way that Aziraphale had never experienced, and soon enough he found himself lying down next to Crowley every night just for the pleasure of waking up to another lazy morning.

–

It was nine months and twelve days after they had moved in together, and Aziraphale was still counting the mornings in wonderment. Aziraphale was walking hand-in-hand with Crowley down a path that curved around a local playground. It was an unseasonably warm day, and all of the children had run out to the playground, their laughter filling the peaceful quiet as the two not-quite-men wandered through the sunlight.

Aziraphale took advantage of the busy surroundings to glance at Crowley, and was taken off-guard by his expression. Crowley was looking towards the playground with what could only be described as grief, raw and unguarded.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale said softly, squeezing his hand. Crowley jolted, clearly startled, and turned to Aziraphale with his best attempt at a smile.

“Yes, angel?”

Aziraphale was face to face with his own reflection in Crowley’s sunglasses. He looked very anxious in the dark glass. “What’s wrong?” he asked, deciding not to avoid the point.

“Nothing at all.” Crowley sounded dismissive, but his head turned back towards the playground even as he spoke. There was a moment of silence, filled with the screeching laughter of the children. “They’re very… happy.” His voice was a mix of disdain and something else that Aziraphale couldn’t quite decipher.

“Do you want one?” Aziraphale regretted the question once he’d asked it. Crowley seemed genuinely taken aback.

“One what?”

“Well, you know. One of _them_.” Aziraphale gestured towards the playground helplessly. “An offspring, a child.”

“A _baby_?” Crowley laughed so hard that his sunglasses slid down his nose, revealing his familiar golden eyes. “Hell no! Have you seen our plants, angel? Do you remember Warlock? You want to try out a kid of our own?”

“That’s not what I meant!” Aziraphale let go of Crowley’s hand so that he could cross his arms across his chest. “I just thought that you- that you maybe- you seemed sad,” he finished lamely.

“Sad?” Crowley shrugged, a movement that rolled through his entire body. “Nah.”

Aziraphale gave him a Look and waited.

Crowley lasted five seconds before he spoke again. “Curious, maybe. If anything.”

“Curious?”

“I mean, we’ve been a lot of things. There have been a lot of years. Insurance salesmen, and magicians, and orators, and knights, and all that sort.”

“We have.” Aziraphale still looked back on his magician years with pride, although he couldn’t say the same for knighthood. Too much heavy armour and fainting in the woods.

“But we’ve never been, well, kids.” Crowley’s tone was trying very hard to be casual and wasn’t doing a good job of it.

“That’s true.” A silence fell, with Aziraphale looking at Crowley inquisitively, and Crowley looking at a nearby tree to avoid meeting Aziraphale’s eyes.

Aziraphale was about to ask what Crowley meant, but just as he opened his mouth there was a sharp cry from behind them.

They spun around to see a young boy falling from a nearby tree, hitting a few branches on the way down before landing on the ground with a heavy _thump_. Both Aziraphale and Crowley started forwards, hands reached out for help, but the boy bounced to his feet before they had taken a full step.

The boy was laughing, and so were his friends above him. He rubbed his back where a root had definitely left a bruise, and then reached for the lowest tree-branch, restarting the climb without a second thought. Their laughter and shouts mingled with the others from the playground.

And there was that look again on Crowley’s face, that heart-wrenching loss and grief.

Aziraphale’s heart pressed against his chest as he reached for Crowley’s hand, stepping forwards to press a quick kiss against the not-quite-demon’s cheek. Aziraphale could tell that this was something that struck deep for Crowley, and even if he didn’t identify with Crowley’s fascination with a human childhood, he couldn’t overlook the desperate longing that he’d found in Crowley’s face.

Crowley smiled and leaned his forehead against Aziraphale’s for a moment. Slowly, they started walking again, leaving the playground behind as they looped back towards the cliffs and the seaside, the serious moment passing.

Still, Aziraphale reflected, if there was any way to give Crowley what he obviously wanted so much, Aziraphale would find it.

–

If there was one thing Aziraphale loved the internet for, it was research. Well, more accurately it was the online auction sites where he could sit for hours bidding on a new book, trying not to curse at the other bidders. He tried to leave the fast-moving internet to Crowley and the hip young people, but it had its uses from time to time.

Crowley gave an arched eyebrow, but didn’t comment when Aziraphale sat down in his reading-chair with a tablet instead of his usual hardcover. The two of them sat beside each other, together in their own spaces, as was their afternoon habit, and tapped away on their separate screens.

Aziraphale was curious: while he and Crowley had been young, they had come into existence before Earthly time was created, and before the idea of growth had really been developed. They had no childhood at all, but surely some humans had nostalgia for their childhoods. Something that they might want to recapture, something that Aziraphale could offer to Crowley.

Regression therapy was the first thing that Aziraphale wandered through pages of research on, but he wasn’t entirely sure how to use it. Crowley had no prior childhood mindset, no natural place of nostalgia or safety to return to. Neither of them, Aziraphale realized, had ever been ‘safe’ in the way a child was supposed to be, never cherished unconditionally nor given the freedom to make mistakes. More and more, he understood the longing that had etched itself into the lines of Crowley’s face on the path by the playground.

Age regression and nostalgia-centered communities gave Aziraphale a bit more to go on, more varied and personal approaches to what it meant to long for a childhood, what it looked like to recreate or reclaim it. Some of the information was definitely relevant, and he found himself bookmarking several pages for later.

Aziraphale made a side-track into age-play communities, but quickly wrote them off. Power dynamics in the bedroom weren’t foreign to him, but Crowley had never shown an interest in any sins of the flesh, not as an active demon and certainly not since the apocalypse. Aziraphale noted some of the nonsexual elements anyways, structures of power and control designed to give a stricter space in which someone could give up responsibility, knowing that punishment was only a foot-stomp away.

He found himself returning to the regression pages, flicking through the various things that people associated with childhood and recreating their childhood mindsets. In his own mind, he was making a list of ideas and questions to bring up whenever it came up again naturally. They had centuries, after all, and there was no rush.

“What are you smiling about over there?” Crowley asked.

Aziraphale glanced up, surprised to know that Crowley had been watching him, and more surprised to feel that his lips were indeed curled into a smile.

Aziraphale opened his mouth to reply and faltered, knowing that Crowley wouldn’t be happy to hear that Aziraphale had been thinking about buying him a snake plushie and wondering exactly how adorable Crowley would be if he fell asleep while holding said plushie.

Crowley’s eyebrows raised even higher at Aziraphale’s silence.

“Are you looking at smut in the living room, angel?” His tone was teasing, and Aziraphale frowned at him.

“No, I was-” Aziraphale sighed and decided to see how Crowley reacted to the truth. “I was researching some things, after what you said the other day.” He paused, and Crowley gestured for him to elaborate. “About being curious, and human childhoods. I had some ideas, but I wanted to look into it first.”

“What did you find?” Crowley asked. Again, that casual veneer over a deep well of mingled interest and anxiety. Aziraphale put his tablet down on his lap and folded his hands over it.

“There are a few approaches to it, from what I saw. Many of them are dependent on human minds and memories, which isn’t applicable to our situation. There are some that explore dynamics of control: finding comfort or pleasure in giving up control to a responsible adult figure, while the other party is forcibly maintained as a child.” Crowley’s mouth screwed up at that, and Aziraphale smiled. “I did assume that wasn’t a direction you wanted to go in. We’ve both had our share of being told what to be, I think.”

Crowley set his tablet down as well, tapping black nails against the metal on the sides. “Is that it?”

“No, I also found some things that were more promising. Communities where the person is more in control of their own regression, and the caregiver is optional. A person who is there to make sure they stay safe while they’re exploring the world as a child. Giving them snacks, and affection, and removing any dangers.”

“Oh.” Crowley’s nails continued tapping. “I don’t know what it would be like.”

“To try being a child?”

“I don’t know what children are supposed to be like.” Crowley glanced up at Aziraphale, and Aziraphale felt a renewed wave of gratefulness that he had stopped wearing his sunglasses in the house. The ability to see the anxiety in Crowley’s amber eyes was more intimate than anything Aziraphale had shared with someone else before. “I won’t be very good at it.”

“My dear, I don’t need you to be anything like a human child,” Aziraphale said. “You can be anything you want to be and I’ll be here for you, I’m sure you know that.”

Crowley dipped his head, directing a badly-suppressed smile towards his knees. “You’re a nightmare, angel. You should write Hallmark cards.”

“Hallmark cards were all your lot,” Aziraphale sniffed, knowing quite well that it was a lie. “I was being sincere.”

“Of course.” Crowley flipped his tablet carelessly onto the floor and scooted over on the couch, a wordless invitation that Aziraphale accepted as soon as it was made. He sat beside Crowley with their legs pressing together and looked at their reflection in the dark screen of the TV in front of them.

“Do you want to try it sometime? I could get you presents, if you wanted. And we could go for a walk around the backyard.” Their cottage was a good way from any other people, the rolling hills stretching between the houses. Aziraphale imagined walking with Crowley, making sure that he didn’t get too close to the cliff edges, and the thought made him smile again. He wouldn’t mind taking closer care of Crowley, if such a thing were permitted now and then. “Or you could try it by yourself, the first few times, and see how it feels.”

“No, I- I think I’d like to try it together. If you would want to.” Crowley bumped his shoulder into Aziraphale’s. “I think it would be easier with someone else sharing the, the same idea. So that I didn’t have to make it up myself from scratch.”

“Of course.” Aziraphale rested an arm on the back of the couch, and Crowley leaned against him. Aziraphale knew that if he reached for Crowley’s hand, his fingers would be chilled. Crowley was still a little bit cold-blooded, glad for every bit of body heat that he could steal from Aziraphale. “It would be my pleasure.”

“Hallmark card,” Crowley muttered again, and Aziraphale gave him a little kiss on the top of his head as punishment.

Unfortunately, Crowley didn’t seem to mind much at all.


	2. Chapter Two

In the end, they settled on a date and wrote it on the calendar, just like their weekly game nights. Crowley protested having it on the calendar in the kitchen, but Aziraphale found him staring at it one morning, drinking his coffee and smiling slightly.

The date grew nearer and Aziraphale made his quiet preparations, occasionally asking Crowley’s opinion on this or that. He was picking up some of Crowley’s nerves, hoping that everything would go well and he wouldn’t do anything wrong. From his research, age regression could be a very vulnerable experience, and Aziraphale didn’t want to make Crowley feel that he’d made a mistake trusting Aziraphale with it.

They agreed that for the first try, Aziraphale would make the plan. He would create a space where Crowley could be surrounded by the external factors of being a child, even if he couldn’t create a mental space for it yet. Discovering from scratch what childhood felt like wasn’t going to be easy, and both of them were aware of it. They agreed that there was no pressure on either of them, that both of them could step back at any time, and that it was perfectly alright if it didn’t work out.

Knowing all of that didn’t make it any easier to fall asleep the evening before, and Aziraphale found himself lying awake for an hour that felt like a century. Eventually, he managed to drift off to Crowley’s familiar rasping breaths beside him.

–

The late morning light shone into the cottage, the leaves of the plants casting shadows across the shelves and the floors. Aziraphale walked down the hallway, taking a deep breath as he paused in front of the bedroom door.

He was ready for this, for whatever the day would bring. If it was awkward and it didn’t work at all, that was fine. They had already planned a movie to watch in the evening as adults. If it did work and he was responsible for a five-year-old today, that was fine too. If it was anywhere in-between, he was prepared to adapt and ready to learn. Everything was fine, he just had to open the door, wake Crowley up, and start their day together.

He brushed his hands over his apron and then rested his palm on the doorknob, twisting it open and pushing his way into the dark room with a decisive motion.

“Crowley? Crowley, love, it’s time to wake up.”

“Hrrrn?” Crowley rolled over in bed, already twisted up in the sheets. He wasn’t a blanket hog when he shared the bed, but as soon as Aziraphale left he always made himself into a little burrito. It was adorable.

“Come on, sleepyhead.” Aziraphale sat down on the edge of the bed and ran a hand through Crowley’s hair, scratching gently at his head. “Breakfast is already on the table.”

“Oh nooo,” Crowley muttered, turning his head into the pillow so that his voice was muffled. “It’s today.”

“It is today!” Aziraphale said, continuing to pet Crowley’s head. “I made chocolate chip pancakes.”

“Sounds good.” Crowley’s voice was reluctant, and his face was firmly in the pillow.

“I know they’re your favourite, so I made them just for you,” Aziraphale told him. “Only the best for my favourite little one.”

Crowley finally rolled over, but only so that he could put his hands over his face and make an embarrassed whining sound. Aziraphale almost raised his eyebrows: it wasn’t a reaction he’d seen from Crowley before, and he hoped it meant he was on the right track.

“Alright, I’m opening the curtains, so keep your eyes closed!” Aziraphale said, rising from the bed and shaking out his skirt. He was wearing his favourite baking outfit, a yellow tartan dress with a floral apron tied around his waist. It made him feel like he was on the cover of a magazine, and he loved the colours.

He opened the curtains with a flourish, and sunlight came streaming into the room. Crowley had slept in late to give Aziraphale time to prepare, and the day was already nearing noon.

“Do you want to choose your outfit today?” Aziraphale asked, as if it was a question that he asked Crowley every morning.

“Yes,” Crowley said, and finally sat upright. He was so loveable in the mornings, his hair a mess and his pupils narrow slits against the light. “I want to choose.”

“Alright, do you want the blue shirt or the red shirt?”

“Red shirt.”

Aziraphale obediently pulled out one of the shirts they had bought together, a plain red t-shirt that wasn’t too far out of Crowley’s comfort zone, but was miles away from his previous outfits. “And shorts or pants, sweetheart?”

“Pants.”

Aziraphale had expected that, and he pulled out a pair of black jeans. Again, not too unusual, but still looser than anything else that Crowley owned. He scooped out a pair of underwear and a new pair of striped socks, putting them all in a pile at the bottom of the bed.

“Do you want me to stay?” Aziraphale asked, as Crowley reached towards the clothes.

“Stay,” Crowley nodded.

“Do you want me to help?”

Crowley shook his head, so Aziraphale waited and watched Crowley get dressed, tossing his silk pyjamas carelessly on the floor. He stood patiently by the door until Crowley had all of his clothes on, even his socks.

“That’s not where your pyjamas go, little one,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley blinked at him with genuine surprise before glancing back at his crumbled pyjamas. “Could you put them away for me?”

Crowley frowned, but he obediently picked up the pyjamas, folded them, and walked over to put them in the right drawer.

“Good job!” Aziraphale praised, holding out his hand. “We can make the bed later, I think it’s time for breakfast.” Crowley already looked slightly overwhelmed, so Aziraphale wiggled the fingers of his outstretched hand. Crowley immediately walked over to hold his hand, and Aziraphale guided him out through the living room and into the dining room.

“There are the pancakes!” Aziraphale said, pointing to a very large stack on the table. “Are you excited?”

Crowley nodded, although Aziraphale could tell that he was still more anxious than anything. Aziraphale pulled out his chair and let him get settled, before sliding two pancakes onto a plate and starting to cut them up. Trying to decide what kind of a child Crowley wanted to try being had been hard: being a baby, a toddler, a seven-year-old, were all very different from each other and equally foreign to the two immortals. They had settled on an older toddler for the first try, so Aziraphale carefully cut the pancakes into bite-sized pieces and added the maple syrup before setting them in front of Crowley with a plastic fork.

Crowley scowled at the plastic fork, but used it to stab a piece of pancake. Aziraphale beamed, proud of how hard Crowley was trying to push past his own discomfort and how little he was trying to hide from Aziraphale at this moment. It was going more smoothly than he had expected, and as Crowley put the first bite of pancake in his mouth, his eyes lit up and he started to eat the rest at a much faster rate.

Hiding his fondness, Aziraphale turned to the counter and began stirring together some chocolate milk, pouring it into a sippy cup and giving it one last shake before putting it in front of Crowley.

Another double-take at the brightly coloured cup, but Crowley picked it up soon enough and started sucking at it, clearly enjoying the chocolate milk. Aziraphale had more of a sweet tooth between the two of them, but he’d never seen Crowley turn his nose up at something that was chocolate.

“Is it good, sweetheart?” Aziraphale prompted, sitting down to his own plate.

“Uh-huh!” Crowley ducked his head after his energetic confirmation, seeming embarrassed. Aziraphale beamed at him.

“I’m glad.” Aziraphale tucked into his own breakfast, watching Crowley struggle with the blunt plastic fork. He had chocolate smeared across one cheek and on the back of his hand already. _I’ll have to wipe that up_ , Aziraphale noted absent-mindedly, and was struck by a wave of newness, mixed with an odd nostalgia for something he’d never had. 

Sure enough, at the end of breakfast, Crowley’s face and hands were smudged with chocolate, and Aziraphale wiped him off with a wet cloth, dropping a kiss on his forehead when he drew away. Crowley squirmed under the attention, but even that was unusual. Crowley usually tapped on the nearest surface when he was uncomfortable, but now he was just wiggling back and forth slightly, his hands wrapping around each other. Aziraphale gave him a reassuring smile and rinsed off the cloth.

“Alright, love, do you want to go outside or stay in to watch some cartoons?” Aziraphale asked as he cleared the table.

Crowley thought about that for a few seconds.

“Outside,” he decided.

“Outside it is.” Aziraphale left the chocolatey plates by the sink for later and returned to Crowley, who was pushing his chair back from the table. “Up you go!” he said, scooping Crowley into his arms and propping him on his hip. Crowley, although tall, had always been quite light. It was easy for Aziraphale to carry him with one arm wrapped under him and another one around his back.

Crowley settled against him easily, curling his hands into the fabric of Aziraphale’s dress.

“Maybe it was silly to wipe all that chocolate off,” Aziraphale murmured to himself as he carried Crowley down the hallway. “You’re just going to get all dirty outside.”

“No I won’t,” Crowley said defiantly. His voice sounded no different from normal, but somehow Aziraphale could tell that he was finding an inner child instinct much faster than Aziraphale had expected.

“Alright, I believe you,” Aziraphale told him, and pressed another kiss to Crowley’s cheek before setting him down on the front-hall bench. “Do you want to wear your new shoes?”

“Yeah!” This got a more excited response than anything else had before, Crowley swinging his legs forwards energetically. “Lights!”

Aziraphale knelt down in front of him, his skirt spreading out on the tile floor as he reached over to pull out the sneakers. Undoing the Velcro, he guided Crowley’s feet into them one by one and then did them up. Crowley resumed swinging his feet when Aziraphale stood up, testing how tight they were. He grinned at Aziraphale freely, kicking his heels into the bench he was sitting on and laughing when the shoes lit up with bright red lights.

“Very hip,” Aziraphale assured him. “You’ll be the talk of the town.”

“Uh-huh!” Crowley popped up to his feet, a sudden surge of motion. Aziraphale stopped him before he could run for the door, offering him a pair of plastic-rimmed sunglasses with little car stickers where they hooked behind the ears.

“Here you are, it’s very sunny out there.” Crowley reluctantly slipped them on. “But still don’t look directly at the sun,” Aziraphale added. “It’s very dangerous.”

“I know _that_ ,” Crowley grumbled.

“Good. I like your eyes the way they are,” Aziraphale said, and put on his own running shoes before opening the door.

Crowley was out like a shot, running down the garden path and into the sunshine before Aziraphale could step outside.

“Don’t run too far!” Aziraphale called after him, and Crowley’s carefree laughter came back to him. Crowley was spinning in the sun, just outside the garden fence, his arms out-flung to either side and his face tilted upwards.

Aziraphale relaxed when he saw that Crowley wasn’t going anywhere near the cliffs, and turned back to close the door. He wandered down the path, checking on the flowers and the tomatoes as he made his way towards the still-spinning Crowley.

“You’re going to fall over if you keep that up,” Aziraphale admonished. They could consciously stop dizziness, of course, just like any other function of the bodies they inhabited, but he doubted that Crowley was in a space to do so at the moment. At least the grass looked nice and soft under his feet.

Crowley obediently stopped spinning, and then tried to take a step forward towards Aziraphale and fell over sideways with a comedic shout of surprise. His shoulder hit the ground hard, and he rolled to a stop on his back, staring up at the sky.

“Are you alright?” Aziraphale called, suppressing the urge to run forwards and make sure Crowley wasn’t hurt. They were made of tougher stuff than that, and there was no need to hover.

“I… yeah.” Crowley pushed himself up to a sitting position, and looked over to Aziraphale. “I’m fine.”

Aziraphale couldn’t put his finger on what had changed, but he was well aware that the tumble had jolted Crowley out of the relaxed headspace he’d found. He was back to the Crowley that Aziraphale was familiar with.

“Do you want to go back inside?” Aziraphale asked, still fighting the urge to run forwards and scoop Crowley into his arms.

“Yeah.” Crowley pushed his sunglasses up so that he could rub his eyes. “I think I’m done for today, if that’s alright.”

“Of course.” Aziraphale finally approached, sitting cross-legged on the grass next to Crowley. “You can be done whenever you want.”

“It was short,” Crowley sighed. “But it was nice.”

“Oh?” Aziraphale could feel himself brighten at the off-hand comment.

“I think I’d like to do it again, either with you or by myself.” Crowley rolled the hem of his t-shirt between two fingers. “It was nice.”

“I would be happy to do it again with you,” Aziraphale said. “I had quite a bit of fun.”

“Did you?” Crowley was watching him from the corner of his eye, unwilling to meet his gaze head-on.

“Absolutely.” Aziraphale nodded enthusiastically. “You know how much I love playing the housewife every once in a while, cleaning the cottage by hand. This was even better than that, I’ve never felt so… human.” There was no other word for the feeling, like all the centuries could fade away into a single lifetime, like there was nothing above and nothing below but only the here and now. As though there were no obligation to how they had been made, and only the life they created together.

“An angel who wants to be a housewife,” Crowley chuckled, lying back on the grass and letting the childish sunglasses slide back over his eyes. “Sounds like the plot of a terrible romance novel.”

“Hallmark card, romance novel… at least I’m not someone’s idea of a tragic gothic hero,” Aziraphale said, poking Crowley in the side and relishing his laughter.

“You get _one_ novel written about you and they never forget it,” Crowley griped. “Stop tickling me and lie down, angel. The sunlight is warm and you’re blocking it.”

“Oh, if I’m disrupting your basking,” Aziraphale said graciously and laid down next to Crowley, shifting closer to him and letting Crowley wrap an arm around him. The two of them laid under the noonday sun, breathing in the seaside air and closing their eyes to better savour the warmth. Everything that wasn’t them and their cottage seemed very far away, and Aziraphale felt properly at peace.


End file.
